The Interpretation of Dreams Part 5

Judging from the context of the a.n.a.lysis, we had every reason to a.s.sume that the dream referred to an impression of the dreamer's childhood. If this is correct, it must have referred to the wet-nurse of the dreamer, who is now a man of nearly thirty years of age. The bosom of the nurse is in reality an inn for the child. The nurse, as well as Daudet's Sappho, appears as an allusion to his recently abandoned mistress.

The (elder) brother of the patient also appears in the dream-content; he is upstairs, while the dreamer himself is downstairs. This again is an inversion, for the brother, as I happen to know, has lost his social position, while my patient has retained his. In relating the dream-content, the dreamer avoided saying that his brother was upstairs and that he himself was downstairs. This would have been too obvious an expression, for in Austria we say that a man is on the ground floor when he has lost his fortune and social position, just as we say that he has come down. Now the fact that at this point in the dream something is represented as inverted must have a meaning; and the inversion must apply to some other relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content. There is an indication which suggests how this inversion is to be understood. It obviously applies to the end of the dream, where the circ.u.mstances of climbing are the reverse of those described in Sappho. Now it is evident what inversion is meant: In Sappho the man carries the woman who stands in a s.e.xual relation to him; in the dream-thoughts, conversely, there is a reference to a woman carrying a man; and, as this could occur only in childhood, the reference is once more to the nurse who carries the heavy child. Thus the final portion of the dream succeeds in representing Sappho and the nurse in the same allusion.

Just as the name Sappho has not been selected by the poet without reference to a Lesbian practice, so the portions of the dream in which people are busy upstairs and downstairs, 'above' and 'beneath', point to fancies of a s.e.xual content with which the dreamer is occupied, and which, as suppressed cravings, are not unconnected with his neurosis. Dream-interpretation itself does not show that these are fancies and not memories of actual happenings; it only furnishes us with a set of thoughts and leaves it to us to determine their actual value. In this case real and imagined happenings appear at first as of equal value -- and not only here, but also in the creation of more important psychic structures than dreams. A large company, as we already know, signifies a secret. The brother is none other than a representative, drawn into the scenes of childhood by 'fancying backwards', of all of the subsequent rivals for women's favours. Through the medium of an experience indifferent in itself, the episode of the gentleman who talks angrily of the King of Italy refers to the intrusion of people of low rank into aristocratic society. It is as though the warning which Daudet gives to young men were to be supplemented by a similar warning applicable to a suckling child.4 In the two dreams here cited I have shown by italics where one of the elements of the dream recurs in the dream-thoughts, in order to make the multiple relations of the former more obvious.

Since, however, the a.n.a.lysis of these dreams has not been carried to completion, it will probably be worth while to consider a dream with a full a.n.a.lysis, in order to demonstrate the manifold determination of the dream-content. For this purpose I shall select the dream of Irma's injection (see p. 19). From this example we shall readily see that the condensation-work in the dream-formation has made use of more means than one.

The chief person in the dream-content is my patient Irma, who is seen with the features which belong to her in waking life, and who therefore, in the first instance, represents herself. But her att.i.tude, as I examine her at the window, is taken from a recollection of another person, of the lady for whom I should like to exchange my patient, as is shown by the dream-thoughts. Inasmuch as Irma has a diphtheritic membrane, which recalls my anxiety about my eldest daughter, she comes to represent this child of mine, behind whom, connected with her by the ident.i.ty of their names, is concealed the person of the patient who died from the effects of poison. In the further course of the dream the significance of Irma's personality changes (without the alteration of her image as it is seen in the dream): she becomes one of the children whom we examine in the public dispensaries for children's diseases, where my friends display the differences in their mental capacities. The transition was obviously effected by the idea of my little daughter. Owing to her unwillingness to open her mouth, the same Irma const.i.tutes an allusion to another lady who was once examined by me, and, also in the same connection, to my wife. Further, in the morbid changes which I discover in her throat I have summarised allusions to quite a number of other persons.

All these people whom I encounter as I follow up the a.s.sociations suggested by 'Irma' do not appear personally in the dream; they are concealed behind the dream-person 'Irma', who is thus developed into a collective image, which, as might be expected, has contradictory features. Irma comes to represent these other persons, who are discarded in the work of condensation, inasmuch as I allow anything to happen to her which reminds me of these persons, trait by trait.

For the purposes of dream-condensation I may construct a composite person in yet another fas.h.i.+on, by combining the actual features of two or more persons in a single dream-image. It is in this fas.h.i.+on that the Dr M. of my dream was constructed; he bears the name of Dr M., and he speaks and acts as Dr M. does, but his bodily characteristics and his malady belong to another person, my eldest brother; a single feature, paleness, is doubly determined, owing to the fact that it is common to both persons. Dr R., in my dream about my uncle, is a similar composite person. But here the dream-image is constructed in yet another fas.h.i.+on. I have not united features peculiar to the one person with the features of the other, thereby abridging by certain features the memory-picture of each; but I have adopted the method employed by Galton in producing family portraits; namely, I have superimposed the two images, so that the common features stand out in stronger relief, while those which do not coincide neutralise one another and become indistinct. In the dream of my uncle the fair beard stands out in relief, as an emphasised feature, from a physiognomy which belongs to two persons, and which is consequently blurred; further, in its reference to growing grey the beard contains an allusion to my father and to myself.

The construction of collective and composite persons is one of the princ.i.p.al methods of dream-condensation. We shall presently have occasion to deal with this in another connection.

The notion of dysentery in the dream of Irma's injection has likewise a multiple determination; on the one hand, because of its paraphasic a.s.sonance with diphtheria, and on the other because of its reference to the patient whom I sent to the East, and whose hysteria had been wrongly diagnosed.

The mention of propyls in the dream proves again to be an interesting case of condensation. Not propyls but amyls were included in the dream-thoughts. One might think that here a simple displacement had occurred in the course of dream-formation. This is in fact the case, but the displacement serves the purposes of the condensation, as is shown from the following supplementary a.n.a.lysis: If I dwell for a moment upon the word propylen (German) its a.s.sonance with the word propylaeum suggests itself to me. But a propylaeum is to be found not only in Athens, but also in Munich. In the latter city, a year before my dream, I had visited a friend who was seriously ill, and the reference to him in trimethylamin, which follows closely upon propyls, is unmistakable.

I pa.s.s over the striking circ.u.mstance that here, as elsewhere in the a.n.a.lysis of dreams, a.s.sociations of the most widely differing values are employed for making thought-connections as though they were equivalent, and I yield to the temptation to regard the procedure by which amyls in the dream-thoughts are replaced in the dream-content by propyls as a sort of plastic process.

On the one hand, here is the group of ideas relating to my friend Otto, who does not understand me, thinks I am in the wrong, and gives me the liqueur that smells of amyls; on the other hand, there is the group of ideas -- connected with the first by contrast -relating to my Berlin friend who does understand me, who would always think that I was right, and to whom I am indebted for so much valuable information concerning the chemistry of s.e.xual processes.

What elements in the Otto group are to attract my particular attention are determined by the recent circ.u.mstances which are responsible for the dream; amyls belong to the element so distinguished, which are predestined to find their way into the dream-content. The large group of ideas centring upon William is actually stimulated by the contrast between William and Otto, and those elements in it are emphasised which are in tune with those already stirred up in the 'Otto' group. In the whole of this dream I am continually recoiling from somebody who excites my displeasure towards another person with whom I can at will confront the first; trait by trait I appeal to the friend as against the enemy. Thus 'amyls' in the Otto group awakes recollections in the other group, also belonging to the region of chemistry; 'trimethylamin', which receives support from several quarters, finds its way into the dream-content. 'Amyls', too, might have got into the dream-content unchanged, but it yields to the influence of the 'William' group, inasmuch as out of the whole range of recollections covered by this name an element is sought out which is able to furnish a double determination for 'amyls'. 'Propyls' is closely a.s.sociated with 'amyls'; from the 'William' group comes Munich with its propylaeum. Both groups are united in 'propyls--propylaeum'. As though by a compromise, this intermediate element then makes its way into the dream-content. Here a common mean which permits of a multiple determination has been created. It thus becomes palpable that a multiple determination must facilitate penetration into the dream-content. For the purpose of this mean-formation a displacement of the attention has been unhesitatingly effected from what is really intended to something adjacent to it in the a.s.sociations.

The study of the dream of Irma's injection has now enabled us to obtain some insight into the process of condensation which occurs in the formation of dreams. We perceive, as peculiarities of the condensing process, a selection of those elements which occur several times over in the dream-content, the formation of new unities (composite persons, mixed images), and the production of common means. The purpose which is served by condensation, and the means by which it is brought about, will be investigated when we come to study in all their bearings the psychic processes at work in the formation of dreams. Let us for the present be content with establis.h.i.+ng the fact of dream-condensation as a relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content which deserves attention.

The condensation-work of dreams becomes most palpable when it takes words and names as its objects. Generally speaking, words are often treated in dreams as things, and therefore undergo the same combinations as the ideas of things. The results of such dreams are comical and bizarre word-formations.

A colleague sent an essay of his, in which he had, in my opinion, overestimated the value of a recent physiological discovery, and had expressed himself, moreover, in extravagant terms. On the following night I dreamed a sentence which obviously referred to this essay: 'That is a truly norekdal style.' The solution of this word-formation at first gave me some difficulty; it was unquestionably formed as a parody of the superlatives 'colossal', 'pyramidal'; but it was not easy to say where it came from. At last the monster fell apart into the two names Nora and Ekdal, from two well-known plays by Ibsen. I had previously read a newspaper article on Ibsen by the writer whose latest work I was now criticising in my dream.

One of my female patients dreams that a man with a fair beard and a peculiar glittering eye is pointing to a signboard attached to a tree which reads: uclamparia -wet.5

a.n.a.lysis. -- The man was rather authoritative-looking, and his peculiar glittering eye at once recalled the church of San Paolo, near Rome, where she had seen the mosaic portraits of the Popes. One of the early Popes had a golden eye (this is really an optical illusion, to which the guides usually call attention). Further a.s.sociations showed that the general physiognomy of the man corresponded with her own clergyman (pope), and the shape of the fair beard recalled her doctor (myself), while the stature of the man in the dream recalled her father. All these persons stand in the same relation to her; they are all guiding and directing the course of her life. On further questioning, the golden eye recalled gold -- money -- the rather expensive psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment, which gives her a great deal of concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold cure for alcoholism -- Herr D., whom she would have married, if it had not been for his clinging to the disgusting alcohol habit -- she does not object to anyone's taking an occasional drink; she herself sometimes drinks beer and liqueurs. This again brings her back to her visit to San Paolo (fuori la mura) and its surroundings. She remembers that in the neighbouring monastery of the Tre Fontane she drank a liqueur made of eucalyptus by the Trappist monks of the monastery. She then relates how the monks transformed this malarial and swampy region into a dry and wholesome neighbourhood by planting numbers of eucalyptus trees. The word 'uclamparia' then resolves itself into eucalyptus and malarie, and the word wet refers to the former swampy nature of the locality. Wet also suggests dry. Dry is actually the name of the man whom she would have married but for his over-indulgence in alcohol. The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic origin (drei = three) and hence, alludes to the monastery of the Three (drei) Fountains. In talking of Mr Dry's habit she used the strong expression: 'He could drink a fountain.' Mr Dry jocosely refers to his habit by saying: 'You know I must drink because I am always dry' (referring to his name). The eucalyptus refers also to her neurosis, which was at first diagnosed as malaria. She went to Italy because her attacks of anxiety, which were accompanied by marked rigors and s.h.i.+vering, were thought to be of malarial origin. She bought some eucalyptus oil from the monks, and she maintains that it has done her much good.

The condensation uclamparia--wet is therefore the point of junction for the dream as well as for the neurosis.

In a rather long and confused dream of my own, the apparent nucleus of which is a sea-voyage, it occurs to me that the next port is Hearsing, and next after that Fliess. The latter is the name of my friend in B., to which city I have often journeyed. But Hearsing is put together from the names of the places in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which so frequently end in 'ing': Hietzing, Liesing, Moedling (the old Medelitz, meae deliciae, 'my joy'; that is, my own name, the German for 'joy' being Freude), and the English hearsay, which points to calumny, and establishes the relation to the indifferent dream-stimulus of the day -- a poem in Fliegende Blatter about a slanderous dwarf, 'Sagter Hatergesagt' (Saidhe Hashesaid). By the combination of the final syllable ing with the name Fliess, Vlissingen is obtained, which is a real port through which my brother pa.s.ses when he comes to visit us from England. But the English for Vlissingen is Flus.h.i.+ng, which signifies blus.h.i.+ng, and recalls patients suffering from erythrothobia (fear of blus.h.i.+ng), whom I sometimes treat, and also a recent publication of Bechterew's, relating to this neurosis, the reading of which angered me.6

Upon another occasion I had a dream which consisted of two separate parts. The first was the vividly remembered word 'Autodidasker': the second was a faithful reproduction in the dream-content of a short and harmless fancy which had been developed a few days earlier, and which was to the effect that I must tell Professor N., when I next saw him: 'The patient about whose condition I last consulted you is really suffering from a neurosis, just as you suspected.' So not only must the newly-coined 'Autodidasker' satisfy the requirement that it should contain or represent a compressed meaning, but this meaning must have a valid connection with my resolve --repeated from waking life -- to give Professor N. due credit for his diagnosis.

Now Autodidasker is easily separated into author (German, Autor), autodidact, and Lasker, with whom is a.s.sociated the name Lasalle. The first of these words leads to the occasion of the dream -- which this time is significant. I had brought home to my wife several volumes by a well-known author who is a friend of my brother's, and who, as I have learned, comes from the same neighbourhood as myself (J. J. David). One evening she told me how profoundly impressed she had been by the pathetic sadness of a story in one of David's novels (a story of wasted talents), and our conversation turned upon the signs of talent which we perceive in our own children. Under the influence of what she had just read, my wife expressed some concern about our children, and I comforted her with the remark that precisely such dangers as she feared can be averted by training. During the night my thoughts proceeded farther, took up my wife's concern for the children, and interwove with it all sorts of other things. Something which the novelist had said to my brother on the subject of marriage showed my thoughts a bypath which might lead to representation in the dream. This path led to Breslau; a lady who was a very good friend of ours had married and gone to live there. I found in Breslau Lasker and Lasalle, two examples to justify the fear lest our boys should be ruined by women, examples which enabled me to represent simultaneously two ways of influencing a man to his undoing.7 The Cherchez la femme, by which these thoughts may be summarised, leads me, if taken in another sense, to my brother, who is still unmarried and whose name is Alexander. Now I see that Alex, as we abbreviate the name, sounds almost like an inversion of Lasker, and that this fact must have contributed to send my thoughts on a detour by way of Breslau.

But the playing with names and syllables in which I am here engaged has yet another meaning. It represents the wish that my brother may enjoy a happy family life, and this in the following manner: In the novel of artistic life, L'Oeuvre, which, by virtue of its content, must have been in a.s.sociation with my dream-thoughts, the author, as is well known, has incidentally given a description of his own person and his own domestic happiness, and appears under the name of Sandoz. In the metamorphosis of his name he probably went to work as follows: Zola, when inverted (as children are fond of inverting names) gives Aloz. But this was still too undisguised; he therefore replaced the syllable Al, which stands at the beginning of the name Alexander, by the third syllable of the same name, sand, and thus arrived at Sandoz. My autodidasker originated in a similar fas.h.i.+on.

My fantasy -- that I am telling Professor N. that the patient whom we have both seen is suffering from a neurosis -- found its way into the dream in the following manner: Shortly before the close of my working year I had a patient in whose case my powers of diagnosis failed me. A serious organic trouble -- possibly some alterative degeneration of the spinal cord -- was to be a.s.sumed, but could not be conclusively demonstrated. It would have been tempting to diagnose the trouble as a neurosis, and this would have put an end to all my difficulties, but for the fact that the s.e.xual anamnesis, failing which I am unwilling to admit a neurosis, was so energetically denied by the patient. In my embarra.s.sment I called to my a.s.sistance the physician whom I respect most of all men (as others do also), and to whose authority I surrender most completely. He listened to my doubts, told me he thought them justified, and then said: 'Keep on observing the man, it is probably a neurosis.' Since I know that he does not share my opinions concerning the etiology of the neuroses, I refrained from contradicting him, but I did not conceal my scepticism. A few days later I informed the patient that I did not know what to do with him, and advised him to go to someone else. Thereupon, to my great astonishment, he began to beg my pardon for having lied to me; he had felt so ashamed; and now he revealed to me just that piece of s.e.xual etiology which I had expected, and which I found necessary for a.s.suming the existence of a neurosis. This was a relief to me, but at the same time a humiliation; for I had to admit that my consultant, who was not disconcerted by the absence of anamnesis, had judged the case more correctly. I made up my mind to tell him, when next I saw him, that he had been right and I had been wrong.

This is just what I do in the dream. But what sort of a wish is fulfilled if I acknowledge that I am mistaken? This is precisely my wish; I wish to be mistaken as regards my fears - that is to say, I wish that my wife, whose fears I have appropriated in my dream-thoughts, may prove to be mistaken. The subject to which the fact of being right or wrong is related in the dream is not far removed from that which is really of interest to the dream-thoughts. We have the same pair of alternatives, of either organic or functional impairment caused by a woman, or actually by the s.e.xual life -- either tabetic paralysis or a neurosis -- with which latter the nature of Lasalle's undoing is indirectly connected.

In this well-constructed (and on careful a.n.a.lysis quite transparent) dream, Professor N. appears not merely on account of this a.n.a.logy, and my wish to be proved mistaken, or the a.s.sociated references to Breslau and to the family of our married friend who lives there, but also on account of the following little dialogue which followed our consultation: After he had acquitted himself of his professional duties by making the above-mentioned suggestion. Dr N. proceeded to discuss personal matters. 'How many children have you now?' -- 'Six.' -- A thoughtful and respectful gesture. -- 'Girls, boys?' -- 'Three of each. They are my pride and my riches.' -- 'Well, you must be careful; there is no difficulty about the girls, but the boys are a difficulty later on as regards their upbringing.' I replied that until now they had been very tractable: obviously this prognosis of my boys' future pleased me as little as his diagnosis of my patient, whom he believed to be suffering only from a neurosis. These two impressions, then, are connected by their contiguity, by their being successively received; and when I incorporate the story of the neurosis into the dream, I subst.i.tute it for the conversation on the subject of upbringing, which is even more closely connected with the dream-thoughts, since it touches so closely upon the anxiety subsequently expressed by my wife. Thus, even my fear that N. may prove to be right in his remarks on the difficulties to be met with in bringing up boys is admitted into the dream-content, inasmuch as it is concealed behind the representation of my wish that I may be wrong to harbour such apprehensions. The same fantasy serves without alteration to represent both the conflicting alternatives.

Examination-dreams present the same difficulties to interpretation that I have already described as characteristic of most typical dreams. The a.s.sociative material which the dreamer supplies only rarely suffices for interpretation. A deeper understanding of such dreams has to be acc.u.mulated from a considerable number of examples. Not long ago I arrived at a conviction that rea.s.surances like 'But you already are a doctor', and so on, not only convey a consolation but imply a reproach as well. This would have run: 'You are already so old, so far advanced in life, and yet you still commit such follies, are guilty of such childish behaviour.' This mixture of self-criticism and consolation would correspond with the examination-dreams. After this it is no longer surprising that the reproaches in the last a.n.a.lysed examples concerning 'follies' and 'childish behaviour' should relate to repet.i.tions of reprehensible s.e.xual acts.

The verbal transformations in dreams are very similar to those which are known to occur in paranoia, and which are observed also in hysteria and obsessions. The linguistic tricks of children, who at a certain age actually treat words as objects, and even invent new languages and artificial syntaxes, are a common source of such occurrences both in dreams and in the psychoneuroses.

The a.n.a.lysis of nonsensical word-formations in dreams is particularly well suited to demonstrate the degree of condensation effected in the dream-work. From the small number of the selected examples here considered it must not be concluded that such material is seldom observed or is at all exceptional. It is, on the contrary, very frequent, but owing to the dependence of dream-interpretation on psychoa.n.a.lytic treatment very few examples are noted down and reported, and most of the a.n.a.lyses which are reported are comprehensible only to the specialist in neuropathology.

When a spoken utterance, expressly distinguished as such from a thought, occurs in a dream, it is an invariable rule that the dream-speech has originated from a remembered speech in the dream-material. The wording of the speech has either been preserved in its entirety or has been slightly altered in expression; frequently the dream-speech is pieced together from different recollections of spoken remarks; the wording has remained the same, but the sense has perhaps become ambiguous, or differs from the wording. Not infrequently the dream-speech serves merely as an allusion to an incident in connection with which the remembered speech was made.8 1 References to the condensation in dreams are to be found in the works of many writers on the subject. Du Prel states in his Philospohie der Mystik that he is absolutely certain that a condensation-process of the succession of ideas has occurred.

2 In estimating the significance of this pa.s.sage we may recall the meaning of dreams of climbing stairs, as explained in the chapter on Symbolism.

3 Translated by Bayard Taylor.

4 The fantastic nature of the situation relating to the dreamer's wet-nurse is shown by the circ.u.mstance, objectively ascertained, that the nurse in this case was his mother. Further, I may call attention to the regret of the young man in the anecdote related on p. 105 (that he had not taken better advantage of his opportunities with his wet-nurse) as the probable source of this dream.

5 Given by translator, as the author's example could not be translated.

6 The same a.n.a.lysis and synthesis of syllables -- a veritable chemistry of syllables -serves us for many a jest in waking life. 'What is the cheapest method of obtaining silver? You go to a field where silver-berries are growing and pick them; then the berries are eliminated and the silver remains in a free state.' [Translator's example.] The first person who read and criticised this book made the objection -- with which other readers will probably agree -- 'that the dreamer often appears too witty.' That is true, so long as it applies to the dreamer; it involves a condemnation only when its application is extended to the interpreter of the dream. In waking reality I can make very little claim to the predicate 'witty'; if my dreams appear witty, this is not the fault of my individuality, but of the peculiar psychological conditions under which the dream is fabricated, and is intimately connected with the theory of wit and the comical. The dream becomes witty because the shortest and most direct way to the expression of its thoughts is barred for it; the dream is under constraint. My readers may convince themselves that the dreams of my patients give the impression of being quite as witty (at least, in intention), as my own, and even more so. Nevertheless, this reproach impelled me to compare the technique of wit with the dream-work.

7 Lasker died of progressive paralysis; that is, of the consequences of an infection caught from a woman (syphilis); Lasalle, also a syphilitic, was killed in a duel which he fought on account of the lady whom he had been courting.

8 In the case of a young man who was suffering from obsessions, but whose intellectual functions were intact and highly developed, I recently found the only exception to this rule The speeches which occurred in his dreams did not originate in speeches which he had heard or had made himself, but corresponded to the undistorted verbal expression of his obsessive thoughts, which came to his waking consciousness only in an altered form.

B. THE WORK OF DISPLACEMENT.

Another and probably no less significant relation must have already forced itself upon our attention while we were collecting examples of dream-condensation. We may have noticed that these elements which obtrude themselves in the dream-content as its essential components do not by any means play this same part in the dream-thoughts. As a corollary to this, the converse of this statement is also true. That which is obviously the essential content of the dream-thoughts need not be represented at all in the dream. The dream is, as it were, centred elsewhere; its content is arranged about elements which do not const.i.tute the central point of the dream-thoughts. Thus, for example, in the dream of the botanical monograph the central point of the dream-content is evidently the element 'botanical'; in the dream-thoughts we are concerned with the complications and conflicts resulting from services rendered between colleagues which place them under mutual obligations; later on with the reproach that I am in the habit of sacrificing too much time to my hobbies; and the element 'botanical' finds no place in this nucleus of the dream-thoughts, unless it is loosely connected with it by ant.i.thesis, for botany was never among my favourite subjects. In the Sappho-dream of my patient, ascending and descending, being upstairs and down, is made the central point; the dream, however, is concerned with the danger of s.e.xual relations with persons of 'low' degree; so that only one of the elements of the dream-thoughts seems to have found its way into the dream-content, and this is unduly expanded. Again, in the dream of my uncle, the fair beard, which seems to be its central point, appears to have no rational connection with the desire for greatness which we have recognised as the nucleus of the dream-thoughts. Such dreams very naturally give us an impression of a 'displacement'. In complete contrast to these examples, the dream of Irma's injection shows that individual elements may claim the same place in dream-formation as that which they occupy in the dream-thoughts. The recognition of this new and utterly inconstant relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content will probably astonish us at first. If we find in a psychic process of normal life that one idea has been selected from among a number of others, and has acquired a particular emphasis in our consciousness, we are wont to regard this as proof that a peculiar psychic value (a certain degree of interest) attaches to the victorious idea. We now discover that this value of the individual element in the dream-thoughts is not retained in dream-formation, or is not taken into account. For there is no doubt which of the elements of the dream-thoughts are of the highest value; our judgment informs us immediately. In dream-formation the essential elements, those that are emphasised by intensive interest, may be treated as though they were subordinate, while they are replaced in the dream by other elements, which were certainly subordinate in the dream-thoughts. It seems at first as though the psychic intensity1 of individual ideas were of no account in their selection for dream-formation, but only their greater or lesser multiplicity of determination. One might be inclined to think that what gets into the dream is not what is important in the dream-thoughts, but what is contained in them several times over; but our understanding of dream-formation is not much advanced by this a.s.sumption; to begin with, we cannot believe that the two motives of multiple determination and intrinsic value can influence the selection of the dream otherwise than in the same direction. Those ideas in the dream-thoughts which are most important are probably also those which recur most frequently, since the individual dream-thoughts radiate from them as centres. And yet the dream may reject these intensively emphasised and extensively reinforced elements, and may take up into its content other elements which are only extensively reinforced.

This difficulty may be solved if we follow up yet another impression received during the investigation of the over-determination of the dream-content. Many readers of this investigation may already have decided, in their own minds, that the discovery of the multiple determination of the dream-elements is of no great importance, because it is inevitable. Since in a.n.a.lysis we proceed from the dream-elements, and register all the ideas which a.s.sociate themselves with these elements, is it any wonder that these elements should recur with peculiar frequency in the thought-material obtained in this manner? While I cannot admit the validity of this objection, I am now going to say something that sounds rather like it: Among the thoughts which a.n.a.lysis brings to light are many which are far removed from the nucleus of the dream, and which stand out like artificial interpolations made for a definite purpose. Their purpose may readily be detected; they establish a connection, often a forced and far-fetched connection, between the dream-content and the dream-thoughts, and in many cases, if these elements were weeded out of the a.n.a.lysis, the components of the dream-content would not only not be over-determined, but they would not be sufficiently determined. We are thus led to the conclusion that multiple determination, decisive as regards the selection made by the dream, is perhaps not always a primary factor in dream-formation, but is often a secondary product of a psychic force which is as yet unknown to us. Nevertheless, it must be of importance for the entrance of the individual elements into the dream, for we may observe that in cases where multiple determination does not proceed easily from the dream-material it is brought about with a certain effort.

It now becomes very probable that a psychic force expresses itself in the dream-work which, on the one hand, strips the elements of the high psychic value of their intensity and, on the other hand, by means of over-determination, creates new significant values from elements of slight value, which new values then make their way into the dream-content. Now if this is the method of procedure, there has occurred in the process of dream-formation a transference and displacement of the psychic intensities of the individual elements, from which results the textual difference between the dream-content and the thought-content. The process which we here a.s.sume to be operative is actually the most essential part of the dream-work; it may fitly be called dream-displacement. Dream-displacement and dream-condensation are the two craftsmen to whom we may chiefly ascribe the structure of the dream.

I think it will be easy to recognise the psychic force which expresses itself in dream-displacement. The result of this displacement is that the dream-content no longer has any likeness to the nucleus of the dream-thoughts, and the dream reproduces only a distorted form of the dream-wish in the unconscious. But we are already acquainted with dream-distortion; we have traced it back to the censors.h.i.+p which one psychic instance in the psychic life exercises over another. Dream-displacement is one of the chief means of achieving this distortion. Is fecit, cui profuit. We must a.s.sume that dream-displacement is brought about by the influence of this censors.h.i.+p, the endopsychic defence.2 The manner in which the factors of displacement, condensation and over-determination interact with one another in dream-formation -- which is the ruling factor and which the subordinate one -- all this will be reserved as a subject for later investigation. In the meantime, we may state, as a second condition which the elements that find their way into the dream must satisfy, that they must be withdrawn from the resistance of the censors.h.i.+p. But henceforth, in the interpretation of dreams, we shall reckon with dream-displacement as an unquestionable fact.

1 The psychic intensity or value of an idea -- the emphasis due to interest -- is of course to be distinguished from perceptual or conceptual intensity.

2 Since I regard the attribution of dream-distortion to the censors.h.i.+p as the central point of my conception of the dream, I will here quote the closing pa.s.sage of a story, Traumen wie Wachen, from Phantasien eines Realisten, by Lynkeus (Vienna, second edition, 1900), in which I find this chief feature of my doctrine reproduced: 'Concerning a man who possesses the remarkable faculty of never dreaming nonsense . . .'

'Your marvellous faculty of dreaming as if you were awake is based upon your virtues, upon your goodness, your justice, and your love of truth; it is the moral clarity of your nature which makes everything about you intelligible to me.'

'But if I really give thought to the matter,' was the reply, 'I almost believe that all men are made as I am, and that no one ever dreams nonsense! A dream which one remembers so distinctly that one can relate it afterwards, and which, therefore, is no dream of delirium, always has a meaning; why, it cannot be otherwise! For that which is in contradiction to itself can never be combined into a whole. The fact that time and s.p.a.ce are often thoroughly shaken up, detracts not at all from the real content of the dream, because both are without any significance whatever for its essential content. We often do the same thing in waking life; think of fairytales, of so many bold and pregnant creations of fantasy, of which only a foolish person would say: ''That is nonsense! For it isn't possible.'' '

'If only it were always possible to interpret dreams correctly, as you have just done with mine!' said the friend.

'That is certainly not an easy task, but with a little attention it must always be possible to the dreamer. -- You ask why it is generally impossible? In your case there seems to be something veiled in your dreams, something unchaste in a special and exalted fas.h.i.+on, a certain secrecy in your nature, which it is difficult to fathom; and that is why your dreams so often seem to be without meaning or even nonsensical. But in the profoundest sense, this is by no means the case; indeed it cannot be, for a man is always the same person, whether he wakes or dreams.'

C. THE MEANS OF REPRESENTATION IN DREAMS.

Besides the two factors of condensation and displacement in dreams, which we have found to be at work in the transformation of the latent dream-material into the manifest dream-content, we shall, in the course of this investigation, come upon two further conditions which exercise an unquestionable influence over the selection of the material that eventually appears in the dream. But first, even at the risk of seeming to interrupt our progress, I shall take a preliminary glance at the processes by which the interpretation of dreams is accomplished. I do not deny that the best way of explaining them, and of convincing the critic of their reliability, would be to take a single dream as an example, to detail its interpretation, as I did (in Chapter Two) in the case of the dream of Irma's injection, but then to a.s.semble the dream-thoughts which I had discovered, and from them to reconstruct the formation of the dream -- that is to say, to supplement dream-a.n.a.lysis by dream-synthesis. I have done this with several specimens for my own instruction; but I cannot undertake to do it here, as I am prevented by a number of considerations (relating to the psychic material necessary for such a demonstration) such as any right-thinking person would approve. In the a.n.a.lysis of dreams these considerations present less difficulty, for an a.n.a.lysis may be incomplete and still retain its value, even if it leads only a little way into the structure of the dream. I do not see how a synthesis, to be convincing, could be anything short of complete. I could give a complete synthesis only of the dreams of such persons as are unknown to the reading public. Since, however, neurotic patients are the only persons who furnish me with the means of making such a synthesis, this part of the description of dreams must be postponed until I can carry the psychological explanation of the neuroses far enough to demonstrate their relation to our subject.1 This will be done elsewhere.

From my attempts to construct dreams synthetically from their dream-thoughts, I know that the material which is yielded by interpretation varies in value. Part of it consists of the essential dream-thoughts, which would completely replace the dream and would in themselves be a sufficient subst.i.tute for it, were there no dream-censors.h.i.+p. To the other part one is wont to ascribe slight importance, nor does one set any value on the a.s.sertion that all these thoughts have partic.i.p.ated in the formation of the dream; on the contrary, they may include notions which are a.s.sociated with experiences that have occurred subsequently to the dream, between the dream and the interpretation. This part comprises not only all the connecting-paths which have led from the manifest to the latent dream-content, but also the intermediate and approximating a.s.sociations by means of which one has arrived at a knowledge of these connecting-paths during the work of interpretation.

At this point we are interested exclusively in the essential dream-thoughts. These commonly reveal themselves as a complex of thoughts and memories of the most intricate possible construction, with all the characteristics of the thought-processes known to us in waking life. Not infrequently they are trains of thought which proceed from more than one centre, but which are not without points of contact; and almost invariably we find, along with a train of thought, its contradictory counterpart, connected with it by the a.s.sociation of contrast.

The individual parts of this complicated structure naturally stand in the most manifold logical relations to one another. They const.i.tute foreground and background, digressions, ill.u.s.trations, conditions, lines of argument and objections. When the whole ma.s.s of these dream-thoughts is subjected to the pressure of the dream-work, during which the fragments are turned about, broken up and compacted, somewhat like drifting ice, the question arises, what becomes of the logical ties which had hitherto provided the framework of the structure? What representation do 'if, 'because', 'as though', 'although', 'either -- or' and all the other conjunctions, without which we cannot understand a phrase or a sentence, receive in our dreams?

To begin with, we must answer that the dream has at its disposal no means of representing these logical relations between the dream-thoughts. In most cases it disregards all these conjunctions, and undertakes the elaboration only of the material content of the dream-thoughts. It is left to the interpretation of the dream to restore the coherence which the dream-work has destroyed.

If dreams lack the ability to express these relations, the psychic material of which they are wrought must be responsible for this defect. As a matter of fact, the representative arts -- painting and sculpture -- are similarly restricted, as compared with poetry, which is able to employ speech; and here again the reason for this limitation lies in the material by the elaboration of which the two plastic arts endeavour to express something. Before the art of painting arrived at an understanding of the laws of expression by which it is bound, it attempted to make up for this deficiency. In old paintings little labels hung out of the mouths of the persons represented, giving in writing the speech which the artist despaired of expressing in the picture.

Here, perhaps an objection will be raised, challenging the a.s.sertion that our dreams dispense with the representation of logical relations. There are dreams in which the most complicated intellectual operations take place; arguments for and against are adduced, jokes and comparisons are made, just as in our waking thoughts. But here again appearances are deceptive; if the interpretation of such dreams is continued it will be found that all these things are dream-material, not the representation of intellectual activity in the dream. The content of the dream-thoughts is reproduced by the apparent thinking in our dreams, but not the relations of the dream-thoughts to one another, in the determination of which relations thinking consists. I shall give some examples of this. But the fact which is most easily established is that all speeches which occur in dreams, and which are expressly designated as such, are unchanged or only slightly modified replicas of speeches which occur likewise among the memories in the dream-material. Often the speech is only an allusion to an event contained in the dream-thoughts; the meaning of the dream is quite different.

However, I shall not dispute the fact that even critical thought-activity, which does not simply repeat material from the dream-thoughts, plays a part in dream-formation. I shall have to explain the influence of this factor at the close of this discussion. It will then become clear that this thought activity is evoked not by the dream-thoughts, but by the dream itself, after it is, in a certain sense, already completed.

Provisionally, then, it is agreed that the logical relations between the dream-thoughts do not obtain any particular representation in the dream. For instance, where there is a contradiction in the dream, this is either a contradiction directed against the dream itself or a contradiction contained in one of the dream-thoughts; a contradiction in the dream corresponds with a contradiction between the dream-thoughts only in the most indirect and intermediate fas.h.i.+on.

But just as the art of painting finally succeeded in depicting, in the persons represented, at least the intentions behind their words -- tenderness, menace, admonition, and the like by other means than by floating labels, so also the dream has found it possible to render an account of certain of the logical relations between its dream-thoughts by an appropriate modification of the peculiar method of dream-representation. It will be found by experience that different dreams go to different lengths in this respect; while one dream will entirely disregard the logical structure of its material, another attempts to indicate it as completely as possible. In so doing the dream departs more or less widely from the text which it has to elaborate; and its att.i.tude is equally variable in respect to the temporal articulation of the dream-thoughts, if such has been established in the unconscious (as, for example, in the dream of Irma's injection).

But what are the means by which the dream-work is enabled to indicate those relations in the dream-material which are difficult to represent? I shall attempt to enumerate these, one by one.

In the first place, the dream renders an account of the connection which is undeniably present between all the portions of the dream-thoughts by combining this material into a unity as a situation or a proceeding. It reproduces logical connection in the form of simultaneity; in this case it behaves rather like the painter who groups together all the philosophers or poets in a picture of the School of Athens, or Parna.s.sus. They never were a.s.sembled in any hall or on any mountain-top, although to the reflective mind they do const.i.tute a community.

The dream carries out in detail this mode of representation. Whenever it shows two elements close together, it vouches for a particularly intimate connection between their corresponding representatives in the dream-thoughts. It is as in our method of writing: to signifies that the two letters are to be p.r.o.nounced as one syllable; while t with o following a blank s.p.a.ce indicates that t is the last letter of one word and o the first letter of another. Consequently, dream-combinations are not made up of arbitrary, completely incongruous elements of the dream-material, but of elements that are pretty intimately related in the dream-thoughts also.

For representing causal relations our dreams employ two methods, which are essentially reducible to one. The method of representation more frequently employed -- in cases, for example, where the dream-thoughts are to the effect: 'Because this was thus and thus, this and that must happen' -- consists in making the subordinate clause a prefatory dream and joining the princ.i.p.al clause on to it in the form of the main dream. If my interpretation is correct, the sequence may likewise be reversed. The princ.i.p.al clause always corresponds to that part of the dream which is elaborated in the greatest detail.

An excellent example of such a representation of causality was once provided by a female patient, whose dream I shall subsequently give in full. The dream consisted of a short prologue, and of a very circ.u.mstantial and very definitely centred dream-composition. I might ent.i.tle it 'Flowery language'. The preliminary dream is as follows: She goes to the two maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare 'a little bite of food'. She also sees a very large number of heavy kitchen utensils in the kitchen turned upside down in order to drain, even heaped up in stacks. The two maids go to fetch water, and have, as it were, to climb into a river, which reaches up to the house or into the courtyard.

Then follows the main dream, which begins as follows: She is climbing down from a height over a curiously shaped trellis, and she is glad that her dress doesn't get caught anywhere, etc. Now the preliminary dream refers to the house of the lady's parents. The words which are spoken in the kitchen are words which she has probably often heard spoken by her mother. The piles of clumsy pots and pans are taken from an unpretentious hardware shop located in the same house. The second part of this dream contains an allusion to the dreamer's father, who was always pestering the maids, and who during a flood -- for the house stood close to the bank of the river -- contracted a fatal illness. The thought which is concealed behind the preliminary dream is something like this: 'Because I was born in this house, in such sordid and unpleasant surroundings . . .' The main dream takes up the same thought, and presents it in a form that has been altered by a wish-fulfilment: 'I am of exalted origin.' Properly then: 'Because I am of such humble origin, the course of my life has been so and so.'

As far as I can see, the division of a dream into two unequal portions does not always signify a causal relation between the thoughts of the two portions. It often seems as though in the two dreams the same material were presented from different points of view; this is certainly the case when a series of dreams, dreamed the same night, end in a seminal emission, the somatic need enforcing a more and more definite expression. Or the two dreams have proceeded from two separate centres in the dream material, and they overlap one another in the content, so that the subject which in one dream const.i.tutes the centre co-operates in the other as an allusion, and vice versa. But in a certain number of dreams the division into short preliminary dreams and long subsequent dreams actually signifies a causal relation between the two portions. The other method of representing the causal relation is employed with less comprehensive material, and consists in the transformation of an image in the dream into another image, whether it be of a person or a thing. Only where this transformation is actually seen occurring in the dream shall we seriously insist on the causal relation; not where we simply note that one thing has taken the place of another. I said that both methods of representing the causal relation are really reducible to the same method; in both cases causation is represented by succession, sometimes by the succession of dreams, sometimes by the immediate transformation of one image into another. In the great majority of cases, of course, the causal relation is not represented at all, but is effaced amidst the succession of elements that is unavoidable even in the dream-process.

Dreams are quite incapable of expressing the alternative 'either -- or'; it is their custom to take both members of this alternative into the same context, as though they had an equal right to be there. A cla.s.sic example of this is contained in the dream of Irma's injection. Its latent thoughts obviously mean: I am not responsible for the persistence of Irma's pains; the responsibility rests either with her resistance to accepting the solution or with the fact that she is living under unfavourable s.e.xual conditions, which I am unable to change, or her pains are not hysterical at all, but organic. The dream, however, carries out all these possibilities, which are almost mutually exclusive, and is quite ready to add a fourth solution derived from the dream-wish. After interpreting the dream, I then inserted the either --or in its context in the dream-thoughts.

But when in narrating a dream the narrator is inclined to employ the alternative either -or: 'It was either a garden or a living-room,' etc., there is not really an alternative in the dream-thoughts, but an 'and' -- a simple addition. When we use either --or we are as a rule describing a quality of vagueness in some element of the dream, but a vagueness which may still be cleared up. The rule to be applied in this case is as follows: The individual members of the alternative are to be treated as equal and connected by an 'and'. For instance, after waiting long and vainly for the address of friend who is travelling in Italy, I dream that I receive a telegram which gives me the address. On the telegraph form I see printed in blue letters: the first word is blurred -- perhaps via or villa; the second is distinctly Sezerno,or even (Casa).

The second word, which reminds me of Italian names, and of our discussions on etymology, also expresses my annoyance in respect of the fact that my friend has kept his address a secret from me; but each of the possible first three words may be recognised on a.n.a.lysis as an independent and equally justifiable starting-point in the concatenation of ideas.

During the night before the funeral of my father I dreamed of a printed placard, a card or poster rather like the notices in the waiting-rooms of railway stations which announce that smoking is prohibited. The sign reads either: You are requested to shut the eyes or You are requested to shut one eye an alternative which I am in the habit of representing in the following form: the You are requested to shut eye(s).

one.

Each of the two versions has its special meaning, and leads along particular paths in the dream-interpretation. I had made the simplest possible funeral arrangements, for I knew what the deceased thought about such matters. Other members of the family, however, did not approve of such puritanical simplicity; they thought we should feel ashamed in the presence of the other mourners. Hence one of the wordings of the dream asks for the 'shutting of one eye', that is to say, it asks that people should show consideration. The significance of the vagueness, which is here represented by an either --or, is plainly to be seen. The dream-work has not succeeded in concocting a coherent and yet ambiguous wording for the dream-thoughts. Thus the two princ.i.p.al trains of thought are separated from each other, even in the dream-content.

In some few cases the division of a dream into two equal parts expresses the alternative which the dream finds it so difficult to present.

The att.i.tude of dreams to the category of ant.i.thesis and contradiction is very striking. This category is simply ignored; the word 'No' does not seem to exist for a dream. Dreams are particularly fond of reducing ant.i.theses to uniformity, or representing them as one and the same thing. Dreams likewise take the liberty of representing any element whatever by its desired opposite, so that it is at first impossible to tell, in respect of any element which is capable of having an opposite, whether it is contained in the dream-thoughts in the negative or the positive sense.2 In one of the recently cited dreams, whose introductory portion we have already interpreted ('because my origin is so and so'), the dreamer climbs down over a trellis, and holds a blossoming bough in her hands. Since this picture suggests to her the angel in paintings of the Annunciation (her own name is Mary) bearing a lily-stem in his hand, and the white-robed girls walking in procession on Corpus Christi Day, when the streets are decorated with green boughs, the blossoming bough in the dream is quite clearly an allusion to s.e.xual innocence. But the bough is thickly studded with red blossoms, each of which resembles a camellia. At the end of her walk (so the dream continues) the blossoms are already beginning to fall; then follow unmistakable allusions to menstruation. But this very bough, which is carried like a lily-stem and as though by an innocent girl, is also an allusion to Camille, who, as we know, usually wore a white camellia, but a red one during menstruation. The same blossoming bough ('the flower of maidenhood' in Goethe's songs of the miller's daughter) represents at once s.e.xual innocence and its opposite. Moreover, the same dream, which expresses the dreamer's joy at having succeeded in pa.s.sing through life unsullied, hints in several places (as in the falling of the blossom) at the opposite train of thought, namely, that she had been guilty of various sins against s.e.xual purity (that is, in her childhood). In the a.n.a.lysis of the dream we may clearly distinguish the two trains of thought, of which the comforting one seems to be superficial, and the reproachful one more profound. The two are diametrically opposed to each other, and their similar yet contrasting elements have been represented by identical dream-elements.

The mechanism of dream-formation is favourable in the highest degree to only one of the logical relations. This relation is that of similarity, agreement, contiguity, 'just as'; a relation which may be represented in our dreams, as no other can be, by the most varied expedients. The 'screening' which occurs in the dream-material, or the cases of 'just as', are the chief points of support for dream-formation, and a not inconsiderable part of the dream-work consists in creating new 'screenings' of this kind in cases where those that already exist are prevented by the resistance of the censors.h.i.+p from making their way into the dream. The effort towards condensation evinced by the dream-work facilitates the representation of a relation of similarity.

Similarity, agreement, community, are quite generally expressed in dreams by contraction into a unity, which is either already found in the dream-material or is newly created. The first case may be referred to as identification, the second as composition. Identification is used where the dream is concerned with persons, composition where things const.i.tute the material to be unified; but compositions are also made of persons. Localities are often treated as persons.

Identification consists in giving representation in the dream-content to only one of two or more persons who are related by some common feature, while the second person or other persons appear to be suppressed as far as the dream is concerned. In the dream this one 'screening' person enters into all the relations and situations which derive from the persons whom she screens. In cases of composition, however, when persons are combined, there are already present in the dream-image features which are characteristic of, but not common to, the persons in question, so that a new unity, a composite person, appears as the result of the union of these features. The combination itself may be effected in various ways. Either the dream-person bears the name of one of the persons to whom he refers -- and in this case we simply know, in a manner that is quite a.n.a.logous to knowledge in waking life, that this or that person is intended -- while the visual features belong to another person; or the dream-image itself is compounded of visual features which in reality are derived from the two. Also, in place of the visual features, the part played by the second person may be represented by the att.i.tudes and gestures which are usually ascribed to him by the words he speaks, or by the situations in which he is placed. In this latter method of characterisation the sharp distinction between the identification and the combination of persons begins to disappear. But it may also happen that the formation of such a composite person is unsuccessful. The situations or actions of the dream are then attributed to one person, and the other -- as a rule the more important -- is introduced as an inactive spectator. Perhaps the dreamer will say: 'My mother was there too' (Stekel). Such an element of the dream-content is then comparable to a determinative in hieroglyphic script which is not meant to be expressed, but is intended only to explain another sign.

The common feature which justifies the union of two person -- that is to say, which enables it to be made -- may either be represented in the dream or it may be absent. As a rule identification or composition of persons actually serves to avoid the necessity of representing this common feature. Instead of repeating: 'A is ill-disposed towards me, and so is B', I make, in my dream, a composite person of A and B; or I conceive A as doing something which is alien to his character, but which is characteristic of B. The dream-person obtained in this way appears in the dream in some new connection, and the fact that he signifies both A and B justifies my inserting that which is common to both persons -- their hostility towards me -- at the proper place in the dream-interpretation. In this manner I often achieve a quite extraordinary degree of condensation of the dream-content; I am able to dispense with the direct representation of the very complicated relations belonging to one person, if I can find a second person who has an equal claim to some of these relations. It will be readily understood how far this representation by means of identification may circ.u.mvent the censoring resistance which sets up such harsh conditions for the dream-work. The thing that offends the censors.h.i.+p may reside in those very ideas which are connected in the dream-material with the one person; I now find a second person, who likewise stands in some relation to the objectionable material, but only to a part of it. Contact at that one point which offends the censors.h.i.+p now justifies my formation of a composite person, who is characterised by the indifferent features of each. This person, the result of combination or identification, being free of the censors.h.i.+p, is now suitable for incorporation in the dream-content. Thus, by the application of dream-condensation, I have satisfied the demands of the dream-censors.h.i.+p.

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